Internal combustion engines are used in a wide variety of applications relating to transportation, generation of electricity and other industrial applications. A chamber is generally filled with a combustible gas which is ignited causing a piston to move inside a cylinder in a direction outward from the direction of the ignition.
A connecting rod is generally used to transfer the energy from the piston to a crankshaft. The crankshaft is then used to perform work such as turning an electrical generator or driving the wheels of an automobile. As the crankshaft turns, the piston oscillates between two positions. As a result, the connecting rods generally move from side to side about the rotation of the driveshaft. This side to side motion causes stresses in the cylinder, the piston and between the piston rings and the cylinder wall.
To compensate for these stresses, previous approaches have extended the height of the piston in order to provide greater surface area contact between the piston and the cylinder wall. As a result, the side to side forces are reduced, but at the expense of greater friction and additional wear upon the piston rings.
Certain previous approach engines, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,435,232, have shown a single piston connected to two or more connecting rods. However, such an arrangement does not provide the benefits of the present invention, such as reducing the side to side forces, reducing friction and reducing additional wear upon the piston rings. Other such previous approaches are generally limited to a single piston driving one or more connecting rods.